missed out on the first few (as well as subsequent) installments
of this thread - by now it's probably unraveled - my orchid digest
has repeatedly been side-tracked by some unknown grinch-like editor
with serious mental problems - frequently all i get is:

[The message and any attached files have been turned into a ZIP
attachment. Once downloaded and unzipped, open it with a word
processor or text editor for reading.]

(the problem is not with orchid - but has anyone ever gotten AOL
to solve an AOL caused problem

Can't help you with the AOL bit (which sounds really odd...) but I
am getting just as frustrated with Earthlink. Their servers
apparently have some sort of overly aggressive spam filters that
keep deciding some how that Ganoksin is spamming, and they block the
entire domain. On my end it means suddenly no mail from Orchid gets
through at all, till I or Hanuman or someone else manages to jump
through a bunch of hoops getting them to remove the block.

This wouldn't be so bad if their servers remembered the fact that
users have told them that Ganoksin is indeed sending wanted non-spam
messages, but they don't seem able to do this. In the last year
the've done this at least three times, each time shutting me off
from Orchid for at leaust a week before things get fixed. I'm
thinking of switching ISP's to Comcast, whose cable is already
supplying the connection for Earthlink. Has anyone else noticed this
annoying fluke with Earthlink, and has anyone had similar trouble
with Comcast? Will I regret changing away from Earthlink?

I had the same problem with my ISP up here in Canuk land. I finallygave up and got a Gmail account for all my mailing lists.

The problem is that the large ISPs tend to use a centralized listlike spamhaus.org, spamcop.net and many others. And in some cases allit takes is one idiot reporting to their ISP that an email is spam,at which point some underpaid and very much under qualified shmuck atthe ISP sends it to the central list as a "confirmed spam source" andorchid is blocked until you jump through the hoops

I have EarthLink and have not had any problems with gettingGanoksin. Not sure what is going on but I've had no interruption. Ialways watch for the digest, usually shows up during the night andit's one of the first messages I open.

and has anyone had similar trouble with Comcast? Will I regret
changing away from Earthlink?

I use Comcast as my ISP but I totally bypass their mail and use ahosting company for my domains and email. This is the one I use:http://www.ganoksin.com/gnkurl/1ln I can make unlimited emailaddresses and hold an unlimited amount of data. (I get theindividual mail from Orchid and never throw any of it away!) Y'alluse that link so I get a kickback, ok?

Is it possible that your firewall-antivirus system is conflicting
with whatever your internet provider is supplying in the way of
security and you are ending up with the short end of the stick?

Nope. It's Earthlink's mail servers all on their own. Messages neverget to me to conflict with my own settings. Fixing the problems(each time) means sending a request to their blocking server toremove the block. Doing that with any assurance of success requiresincluding a copy of the "Blocked" message that is sent back to thesender (Orchid). But I gather that an unblock request coming fromthat sender has less chance of immediate success, especially whenfrom an overseas location, than when the request comes from theEarthlink subscriber. but Hanuman first has to notice the bounceback, and either try to fix it (like he's got time to fool aroundwith such crap) or send me a copy of that notice, which then onlyworks if he sends it from another domain, such as his GMail address.This of course can work, but it's a big annoyance all around, messesup Orchid for me for at least several days, and frankly, just is notacceptable in my view, as something Earthlink does and cannot seemto properly fix. However, it's been suggested that I need notactually swich ISP's, but can simply get my own GMail or MSN mailaddress, and use that for recieving Orchid posts. On the to-do listfor when I get home from the holidays.

(sent from my hard to type on, and spellcheck-missing, Ipad, from LosAngeles, where today was gloriously warm and sunny until an hour ago,when a fog bank moved in, and i can't now see much past a few feet infront of my nose..)

peter, you did add the orchid address to your address book? that's
what i have been told to do when i have problems with addresses
being id'd as junk.

Yes, of course. Actually, I've turned off spam filtering on thataccount, so my address book entries don't figure in. The blockingoccurs when messages first get to the Earthlink servers, long before(well, several nano-seconds at least...) they might have gotten tomy account and it's settings.

Oddly enough, Kay Davis' email ended up in my spam box. How it gotthere is beyond me - I have never had a problem before this. Maybegmail looks for special words in the body? But from one canuck toanother, believe me, I did not report this as spam. And the rest ofthe emails from Orchid came through just fine.

Oddly enough, Kay Davis' email ended up in my spam box. How it got
there is beyond me - I have never had a problem before this. Maybe
gmail looks for special words in the body? But from one canuck to
another, believe me, I did not report this as spam. And the rest
of the emails from Orchid came through just fine.

Oddly enough, this happened for me as well!

On a parallel note, I had a previous internet provider (WorldSpice?Earthlink? RoadRunner? I have used all of these) get very verballyupset when I complained to one of their telephone technicians.According to him, "they" were watching my mail closely because I gotso much email from out-of-country sources; from foreign places likeThailand and West Virginia!! Yes, they specifically included WestVirginia. "They" thought it was in Canada! Could it be that some ofthe internet providers need education that some of us exist in alegitimate world community? And that community embraces ALL of theUnited States? Could it be that they are being pressured by ourgovernment, and that "they" are too badly in need of this educationto even interpret "homeland security" properly?

After 9/11 I had to get a yahoo mail account - one of the governmentagencies (unspecified) shut down earthlink e-mail between the US andsome overseas accounts, including my sister in England (who is aninternationally known business person). very odd!

On the geographical knowledge, I remember when the Olympics were inAtlanta folks in Delaware were told they had to buy tickets from the"international" division - lol! So unfortunately we do have a lot ofcitizens in the US who seem unaware of all of the states. quite sad!